Digital rights management (DRM) technology serves to control usage of digital contents within usage rules set up by a content owner or by legislation. DRM typically serves to protect content against unauthorized usage, but it also enables a service provider to bind usage rules to content, for example in connection with a business model.
The Marlin DRM system developed by the Marlin Developer Community is an example of a DRM system which provides a platform on which a service provider may set up customized usage rules of specific content. In the Marlin system a license is expressed as code. When determining whether content playback is allowed, the license in executed by the playback apparatus instead of interpreted by it. In Marlin, as well as in other DRM systems, a license to content may be customized for the specific content or type of content.
One option available in Marlin, as well as in other DRM systems, is that it is possible in the license to specify that when content is accessed, this access should be metered. That is, it is possible in the license to specify that a usage measure is recorded when the content is accessed. The usage measure may then be reported to a service provider, such as a metering service indicated in the license. In the Marlin system, it is taken into account that devices may not always be online. Accumulation of the usage measure can be made over time and delivered to the service provider when the service is available.
The inventor of the present invention has appreciated that an improved way of handling the usage measure may be of benefit, and has in consequence devised the present invention.